iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Jwst Feed @jwstfeed.bsky.social · 07/01/2025

Galaxy cluster MACS0416. Home to "Mothra", an extremely distant star that is magnified by a factor of at least 4,000 times due to gravitational lensing. 🔭 🧪

A field of galaxies on the black background of space. In the middle, stretching from left to right, is a collection of dozens of yellowish spiral and elliptical galaxies that form a foreground galaxy cluster. Among them are distorted linear features created when the light of a background galaxy is bent and magnified through gravitational lensing. At centre left, a particularly prominent example stretches vertically about three times the length of a nearby galaxy. It is outlined by a white box, and a lightly shaded wedge leads to an enlarged view at the bottom right. The linear feature is reddish and curves gently. It is studded with about a half dozen bright clumps. One such spot near the middle of the feature is labelled “Mothra"

382230207

Wilzax @wilzax.website · 07/01/2025

Is that red smear mostly Mothra's home galaxy then, with Mothra itself being essentially a point in that smear?

050